Sep 03, 2007 7:58 AM GMT
i'm an asian guy planning to move to Canada. Can somebody please note some of the pro's and con's on living in Vancouver. Will really appreciate it.
moving to Canada...
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Sep 03, 2007 7:58 AM GMT -
Sep 03, 2007 12:43 PM GMTI'm a Canadian living in Asia. I think Vancouver has a lot of great features. The scenery is gorgeous with mountains, lakes, ocean, parks within less than an hour commuting distance. Fitness is certainly part of the Vancouver 'scene'. There are great hiking areas, jogging routes, skiing trails, gyms, pools and probably anything else you are keen on.
The population of Vancouver is approximately 1/3 Asian (Cantonese or Mandarin is spoken predominantly in the Richmond area - near the Vancouver International Airport). The city is definitely multi-cultural with a large gay community as well. I think you will find that the city is clean, friendly and welcoming to visitors...giving reason for it being listed as one of 'the' best cities to live in.
Any specific questions...fire them my way and I'll do my best to answer.
Rick -
Sep 03, 2007 1:23 PM GMTplease check this site...
http://www.notcanada.com
is it for real? -
Sep 03, 2007 1:54 PM GMTI have no doubt that many people (Canadians included) have had negative experiences. Paradise on earth does not exist. However, the unfortunate aspect of this website is that it does not give equal response from the thousands of people who have found personal and financial freedom in Canada. Some of the richest business people in the Vancouver area are from India and Asia.
Certainly there are doctors, lawyers and many other occupations that are faced with taxi driving jobs. Some were not able to successfully pass the examinations for their occupations. But it would be important, in my opinion to mention that there are many African doctors immigrating to my country today and working in excellent conditions making great salaries.
Immigation is never an easy decision. But having lived for four years in China I also know that prejudism is not limited to western countries. -
Sep 03, 2007 2:55 PM GMTVancouver is very nice, but it's also got a seedy side that has no parallel in Canada. Drugs and drug addicts have made the east side a scary place. It can have stretches of dreary weather that make it sort of oppressive for months at a time. It's also expensive to live in the actual city. Many of the burbs are much more economical, but not nearly as cool.
That website does seem suspicious. I live in Edmonton where almost every second person is from somewhere else, and the experience of immigrants rejecting Canada is foreign to me. I rarely hear of people leaving. If they leave Edmonton, it's generally to go to Vancouver because they can't stand our cold winters. -
Sep 03, 2007 4:06 PM GMTI don't see anything "suspicious" about it. If you watch the rather long two-part video from Canadian TV, the site is pointing to a serious problem.
Canada has a point system that rewards highly educated and professionally successful people who want to emigrate to the country. But Canada's actual need is for blue-collar workers. Thus the system has vastly inflated the number of highly-educated people while those who could find appropriate employment are kept out.
Moreover, there apparently is no effort at all on the part of the immigration department to educate people in the lengthy process of re-certification and licensure -- years.
The reporter on the TV piece confronts the head of Canadian immigration, who sighs deeply and repeatedly, but admits that the system is "broken." -
Sep 03, 2007 4:14 PM GMTI have moved to Canada several years ago. I must say I have done well for myself here. I came as a refugee with $100 in my pocket and this country gave me a new beginning, I went back to school, I got a university degree, became a professional……I think moving has to do more with the individual than the country, the opportunities are here the same for everybody. I found that some people moving here don’t even make an effort to learn English (trust me I have met a lot people like that) so how do they expect to integrate into the society? Vancouver is a great city, although I find it very small, but it sure has a lot to offer, especially if you like nature!
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Sep 03, 2007 4:26 PM GMTWell a refugee's status is very different from that of people the Canadian government is actually courting to come to the country on the basis of their education and professional success.
I remember the wave of immigrants here from Cuba years ago. Many of them, including my ex-wife's family members, were doctors and teachers who ended up doing menial work too. -
Sep 03, 2007 5:49 PM GMTIt's not suspicious to call Canada "a land of modern slavery"? For every testimonial on that website, there are probably 10,000 people with Vik's opinion. This isn't exactly a horrible place to live.
Anyway, we're getting off-topic here. Yes, Vancouver is nice. There are a few drawbacks, but there are drawbacks to living in any city.
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Sep 03, 2007 6:09 PM GMTProbably not off topic as the original poster also was the one who posted the thread also posted the web site.
Honestly though, what Western country doesn't have a broken immigration system or one of with problems? Certainly the one in the US needs repair.
Immigration is never a piece of cake wherever you go. Canada is probably one of the better countries to go to and Vancouver is certainly a great city. But do your homework. Make sure you know why you are going and what goals you have by immigrating. Know what skills you have and how they fit in the job market -- and yes, know what your degree is worth, or what type of schooling you will need to make it usable. Overall I think that the immigrants who succees best are people who would have succeeded anywhere -- yes, they may be better off, and had better opportunities in Canada, the US, or Australia, etc, but usually they have the drive, imagination and creativity that will make things work anywhere. -
Sep 03, 2007 6:21 PM GMTWhether you come as a refugee or an immigrant, once you’re here, you’re in the same country and same integration takes place. The only difference I can see that an immigrant has a choice to visit prior to making a final decision whether Canada is the place for him (or not), whereas a refugee just runs for it.
Obviously since people come from many different countries here, some equivalency exams are required for professional like medical doctors, etc. It’s up to the individual to register and undergo the exams. Look at it from the other side, who would like to go to see a doctor that bought his degree somewhere on line for a university in Timbuktu? Some standards must be applied.
No place is perfect, but Canada comes pretty close for me!
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Sep 03, 2007 6:58 PM GMTIf all these educated people get to Canada, find they have to work menial jobs, and dont like it, why dont they leave Canada and move somewhere else? They moved once. Just wondering. -
Sep 03, 2007 10:23 PM GMTAccording to the TV piece, many do move back. Others move to the U.S. As I recollect, there was an enormous wave of emigration from Hong Kong to Vancouver following the transfer of the island back to China about 10 years ago. But an unexpectedly large number ended up going back to Hong Kong.
I think if you guys watch the TV piece, you will understand that Canada is marketing itself specifically to highly educated, professionally successful people. It isn't just people who require licensure who are ending up doing menial labor.
If the head of Canada's immigration administration agrees that the system is "broken," it's hard to argue otherwise.
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Sep 03, 2007 10:44 PM GMTI'm sure there are systematic problems, but some of the stories on that web site maybe need a few grains of salt.
I've worked with many excellent scientists who were educated in places like India and China, but there were others who showed up with apparently the same credentials, and seemed to lack any kind of education at all. It makes it really hard to know what these degrees are worth.
Then there's the infamous case of Dr. Jayant Patel< /a>, an accredited surgeon from India, who has left a trail of almost 90 dead and countless mutilated bodies across New York, Oregon, and Australia. He's become a poster child for not accepting the credentials of immigrants at face value. -
Sep 03, 2007 11:58 PM GMThere's a few tidbits I found interesting:
"canada needs blue collar workers?".... ah duh somebody has to work on the oilrigs, build houses, farm, log. it ain't gonna be a shrink.
canada now emigrates between 250-300,000 people per year. the percentage of these people that are hardly "highly educated" is small. this is not inflated like the garbage that was posted here.
Immigration Canada has it's issues. The Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons IS the problem-this a provincial responsibility NOT a federal one. Residency programs is the holdup-it's being addressed.
If you are a foreign trained professional contact the respective professional body. Credentials aside-if you can't speak English or French to begin with there's a problem. Emigration to Quebec is different than the rest of Canada. It is a provincial jurisdiction-they decide who comes not the feds.
as for the other comment that blows me away-vancouver has a seedy side? yes it does.
yet this guy lives in edmonton where the bars on 96th street have a signs on the front "no knives". Embrace the history mate. Edmonton's a great city.
Vancouver has dreary weather? its part of a rainforest system. Rain is liquid sunshine.
Vancouver changed in so many ways after EXPO86.
The Asian community in my opinion are becoming the leaders in Vancouver, financially all the way down the line. The British influence is all but over.
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Sep 04, 2007 1:14 AM GMTWhen I pointed out the "seedy side" of Vancouver and the "dreary weather", I also prefaced the sentence with "Vancouver is very nice...". I simply mentioned a couple of things that weren't likely to be printed on the front page of tour brochures -- things that people who live there actually complain about. I also called it "cool", and I didn't compare it to Edmonton.
Please don't attribute meaning to my remarks that I never implied. I expressed myself clearly; You chose to read in-between the lines. -
Sep 04, 2007 5:29 AM GMTthanks guys for all the postings.
What about the social life, standard of living, health care... I know for a fact that anywhere in the world, the cost of living is going up. But how is it in Canada?
and the gay lifestyle of course... :-)
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Sep 04, 2007 11:11 AM GMTObscenewish commented about the numbers of Chinese who moved to Vancouver from HongKong and then returned to China. This was NOT because of being disgruntled about their lives in Canada. These people initially left HongKong because of general uncertainty concerning the 'One Country - Two Party' system of government and how it would affect the economic stability of HongKong.
Once it became obvious that the economy of HongKong was flourishing and that life in HongKong had most definitely not deteriorated with its reintegration into mainland China, of course families would return to be with their relatives and to re-establish their businesses.
But during those several years of uncertainty I think it's pretty darned cool that there was a country like Canada where those families could live.
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Sep 05, 2007 9:53 AM GMTsports in vancouver-you can ski on the northshore and sail on english bay-same day. You'll eventually hear about the "Grouse Grind"-vertical 600 metre footrace on the Northshore mtns-a fitness challenge and yes 60 year olds will kick ass past you.
When the tides are out take a walk along the beach.
my favourite time of year is December: foggy and dark.
healthcare-any aspect from chinese, holistic to western.
standard of living: too rich for my blood-$ one million to buy your basic fixer-upper home.
